Illustration & Design

Posts Tagged: illustration

It’s been busy here at my studio this summer! I’ve been working with the wonderful folks at Plexipixel creating game art assets for HTML 5 games, and Woot Studio from the Great White North put together the Platformer Game Starter Kit (scroll down to “Free Game Art” for the art packs) with the art. I created the characters and animations for the following themes – Zombie, Day of the Dead, Fantasy, Gothic, & Underwater (Outer Space & Steam Punk were illustrated by the talented Laura Goldstein). The latest creations are the Backgrounds & Items, where I worked on environmental assets for Day of The Dead, Underwater, Gothic, and Fantasy.

I’ve posted some examples below.

Animations:

Backgrounds:

Characters:

If you are interested in learning and creating HTML 5 games, go download the Platformer Game Starter Kit at Woot Studios. The best part is that it’s FREE!

Many thanks goes to Vickyr Tamaru at Plexipixel for the opportunity to work on this awesome project!

To brush up on my animation skills, I took a class in Drawing for Animation at Shoreline Community College. I have experience in animating for games, but they are very limited in scope since they are mostly repeating cycles due to keeping filesizes and the games small. Also, most animations I have created were animated by code, bits and pieces of art put together like a paper puppet. This class focused on full animation and the big project was to create a 30 second pencil test, which was quite the challenge. The class really helped me to refocus on how to animate and giving my animations more life. Additionally, I learned/relearned about certain animators that were inspiring, especially Grim Natwick and UPA animators.

Below are the model sheets and storyboard for “Crazy 8s”. I decided to animate a cereal commercial, inspired by those wacky characters from my childhood. I always thought the commercials were sometimes more interesting than the cartoons I watched.
Watch the movie below the cut!

Cereal ads in old comics are quite fun to read, as they reflect their TV counterparts on Saturday mornings (do they still have Saturday morning cartoons anymore?). I found these three in an old The Flinstones with Pebbles Gold Key comic (#22, 1964). My favorite is the Lucky Charms ad, but look how boring the box is! (Speaking of cereal boxes, check out these Jay Ward inspired designs.) I don’t know who drew these comics, but I’m researching who the cartoonists are. Man, I would so love to have that job drawing cereal ads.

That one kid in the Lucky Charms ad looks suspiciously like a chipmunk.

Sometimes I like to hit thrift stores or antiques shops to hunt down ephemeral paper documents such as brochures, advertisements, booklets, etc. with great illustrations. These small objects weren’t meant to be permanent and were often thrown away so it’s always a joy to discover a long lost illustrated piece of paper by an unknown, or sometimes known, cartoonist. I have a small collection that I will be scanning and sharing with you.
Recently, I found a single sheet with a beautiful Al Wiseman illustration for Boeing. Al Wiseman was a ghost artist for the Dennis the Menace comic books from the 50s and 60s, and this drawing seems to come from that time when he was ghosting the Dennis comics, possibly late 60s to early 70s (the 747 was produced in 1969). The illustration has a fluid line, with a crunchy texture in the clothes and beard, and it’s almost calligraphy. I’m guessing it is a part of a sales package or advertising campaign created for Boeing, so I will be keeping an eye out for anything else drawn by Wiseman for this campaign. If you have any leads or info about this drawing, I’ll love to hear from you!